An indigenous Australian is 15 times more likely than a non-Aboriginal Australian. Indigenous Australians constitute 2% of the country’s population, and 25% of its prison population. And of the 2056 inmates to die in custody in Australia between 1982 and 2008, 379 of them – that’s 18% – were Aboriginal.
Those numbers represent a crisis of which all Australians should be thoroughly ashamed.
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of the findings in a royal commission investigation of Aboriginal deaths in custody. That commission was launched in response to the violent death of a 16-year-old boy, John Pat, in police custody in 1983.
That commission issued over 300 recommendations. And while those recommendations were well-received, critics believe that their ...
An indigenous Australian is 15 times more likely than a non-Aboriginal Australian. Indigenous Australians constitute 2% of the country’s population, and 25% of its prison population. And of the 2056 inmates to die in custody in Australia ...